Leslie Pinckney Hill

IfcftAKY
ril*
C*
fcVINI
The Wings
of Oppression
By
LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL
BOSTON
THE STRATFORD
1921
CO.,
Publishers
UJS*
Copyright 1921
The
STRATFORD
CO., Publishers
Boston, Mass.
The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U.
S. A.
Jane Clark
FOREWORD
in
the life
of
the
nation has
NOTHING
seemed
dark
to
me more
civilization
significant than that which the colored man has
built up in the midst of a white society organ The Negro has been driven ized against it. under all the burdens of oppression, both ma terial and spiritual, to the brink of desperation,
but he has always been saved by his philosophy of life. He has advanced against all opposition
by a certain elevation of
his spirit.
He
has been
made strong
in tribulation.
He
has constrained
oppression te give him wings. In such poems as Armageddon, The Black Man's Bit, and Cora, I have desired to exhibit
something of this indestructible spiritual qual In the others I have wished ity of my race. to be brought into harmony with cur merely rents of thought and feeling common to all humanity. I trust that there may be in all at least an implied appeal to that spirit of human brotherhood by which alone the world must find
the path to peace.
For permission
I
to reprint
some of these poems
Crisis," "The Outlook," "The Independent," "Life," and various other
am
indebted to
"The
publications.
LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL. Cheyney, Pennsylvania, March, 1921.
Contents
The Wings of Oppression
1
POEMS OF
MY
PEOPLE
Armageddon
My
Race
Tuskegee
Freedom Jim Crow "So Quietly" Cora To a Caged Canary Mater Dolorosa The Black Man's Bit To the Chinese
Matto Grosso
.
....... ....... ....... ......

. . .
Self-Determination
5 13 14 15 16 17 19 21 22 23 26 27 31
POEMS OF THE TIMES
A Call to Poets
The Ships Ode to Patriotism The Launching of the Quistconk The Heart of the World
.
35 37 40
.
Clemenceau The Founder
.......
.
.42 .44
45 46 48 50
To All Leaders of Brixton Prison
Men
.
CONTENTS
POEMS OF APPRECIATION
Lines Written in the Alps above Chamonix
.
To the Smartweed To William James To Mrs. J. B. T
*
.
55 59 62 63 64 65 66
.61
Two Women
The Actress The Piano-Player
Prevision
To a Nobly-gifted Singer
Katerina Breshkovskaya Christmas at Melrose
.......
.
.67 .68
69
The Metropolitan Tower A City Park The Symphony The Borglum Statue of Lincoln She Will Come
.
.71
72 73
.75
76 79 80 82 85
Spring The Dogwood
May Again
Summer Magic
Sacred Music at Sea Vacation End
.... ....
.
A Legend of the Easter Children

SONGS
f
Boys Swimming
87 89 90 91
Sweetest, let no cloud of sorrow Lady who is richer far All through the day I bore the
.97
.
pain
Mutatis Mutandis
98 99 100
CONTENTS
POEMS OP THE
SPIRIT
103 104 105 106 108 109 110 Ill 113 114 115 117 118 119 120 121 122 124
A Prayer A Far Country

Nil
Desperandum
Ideal
The Wonder Watch Night

Values
.......
...... ......
.
Tyrant Beauty The Three Marys
Companionship
Home is the Heart

Compensation
CertaintyIn the Still Night
Father Love Divine Affinity
Learning to Walk The Teacher

,
The Wings
of Oppression
HAVE
I
A A
a song that few will sing

all suffering,
In honor of
song to which
my heart
can bring
The homage
of believing
song the heavy-laden hears

tears,
Above the clamor of his fears, While still he walks with blinding
And. drains the cup of grieving.
I
How How
ask not why, I only see poor is all our potency,
soon the wise, the strong, the free

discloses
is
;
Some deadly bane
While he whose bread
doubly priced,
to Christ,
By whom
all
gain
is
sacrificed,
Keeps near to beauty, near And Socrates and Moses.
The captains and the gilded
kings,
With all their marshalled underlings, Are found to be but puny things,
Impermanent and hollow;
THE WINGS OF OPPRESSION

While up through terror, blood and dearth, Poor men accounted little worth,
Still raise
For
the beacon lights of earth truth and faith to follow.
And
life is steeped in wrong, How long, how long nations cry I look not to the wise and strong
' ' :
So long as
' '
!
For peace and self-possession; But right will rise, and mercy shine,
And
justice lift her conquering sign
Where lowly people
starve and pine Beneath a world oppression.
is power, dear is ease, beauty cannot fail to please, But mightier far than all of these Those chastenings of sorrow
sweet
And
By which
alone the heart will dare
To mount beyond a world of care On visions bright beyond compare Of better things tomorrow.
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
Armageddon
Written at the outbreak of the world war, just after President Wilson's appeal to the country for a "poise of undisturbed judgment," to express the
significance to the trammeled millions of colored peo ple the world over, and especially to the American Negro, of that spirit of the times which well nigh des
troyed civilization.
lished in
The poem was originally pub

title,
"The
Crisis" under the
"Die Zeitgeist."
the whirlwind and the thunder-
BEFORE" shock,
.
The agony of nations, and this wild Eruption of the passionate will of man, These tottering bastions of mighty states, This guillotine of culture, and this new
Unspeakable Golgotha of the Christ, My heart declares her faith, and, undismayed, I write her prompting write it in that poise Of judgment undisturbed to which our Head Admonishes the nation.
But have I Does the cannon roar Above the mangled myriads washed in blood
certain warrant?
[5]

Upon a hundred fields embolden me To vent the doctrine of a private heart Nay, ask it not, for God hath chosen still
!
The weak
thing,
and the
foolish,
and the
base,
;
And that which is despised to work And humble men are chartered yet
His will to run
Upon His errands round the groaning sphere. Not many of the mighty shall be called, Not many that dispute, not many wise, That so the prophecy may be fulfilled.
Among the
Whose
Of
all
least of
men
of
many
strains.
origin outdates the pyramids, Uncherished of my country though the blood
my
fathers ran to a
make her
free
Known by
name
Synonymous
that typifies the slave, with darkness, and by that
Set in the ranks of mortals least esteemed, I claim no merit save the love of truth,
And
I
care to find for her a lodging-place.
have been bred and born beneath the stern Duress and cold inhospitality Of that environment which prejudice Fills consciously with bane and I have sough t;
Blessed be the
Of
of mercy--at the shrine thought inviolate the wells of peace.

[6]
God
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
There, fortified and unmolested, long Have I in contemplation rued the plight
Of all my kind, and reverently aspired To ponder out our mission, unconvinced
That we are born the dupes of Providence, To be a nation's burden and her taunt,
Or Ishmaels
of an unchosen land.
of life, quest has been to know the good what endures And why a race should be, and
My
Of To
that which
last
man
has called society,
And
of these pursuits learn -what perfect service, born of throes
and highest aim
Dreadful but purgative, we yet might dare To offer thee, country of our hope.
And from
Whose
these musings
thanks to
Him
home
citadels are stars, with time and space
Their pylons, but
Who
builds His favored
Upon
the docile trust of lowly hearts-
Proceeded comfort, patience to endure, And strength increasing of a faith sublime
Which neither infidelity in arms, Nor all the bitter usage of the world Can e'er avail to tarnish or impair.
[7]

For looking out upon the world
I
saw
No hope for future man in Upon the heights of power,
those
who stand
save in the tales
Transmitted of their slow decline and fall. Because they spurn the truth of brotherhood,
And trade in life, and mock the living God By high contempt of all His humbler sons,
The strong
And
And And
Not
nature's law
battalions of eternal right make their discomfort sure.
They prove
the error of that pride of race nation which has been the world's despite,
Mammon for a thousand years. transient lordship of the earth, Their cunning in the traffic of the world,
unloosed
all their
The condescension of their patronage, Or thundering proclamations of their might, Can check the springs of pity, while our prayers
Besiege the throne of mercy for their weal.
But looking in upon my stricken peers, saw upon their swarthy brows the gleam I saw the lineaments of hope new-born For peoples yet to be. scorn it not,
I
' '
' ' ;
Ye mighty
of all lands, ye that are raised

!
To glory on the necks of trampled men For now within your midst are multitudes Puissant though despised, meek men of prayer,
[8]
POEMS OP MY PEOPLE
Dark, shackled knights of labor, clinging Amidst a universal wreck of faith
still
To cheerfulness, and foreigners
to hate.
These know ye not, these have ye not received,
But these shall speak to you Beatitudes. Around them surge the tides of all your strife, Above them rise the august monuments Of all your outward splendor, but they stand Unenvious in thought, and bide their time.
Because ye schooled them in the arts of
life,
And
gave to them your God, and poured your

blood
Into their veins to
them enough of you to feel All that has made you masters in your time The power of art and wealth, unending toil, Proud types of beauty, an unbounded will To triumph, wondrous science, and old law These have they learned to value and to share.
in
They They hold
shall not fail
make them what they are, you in your hour of need.
But deeper in them still is something steeled To hot abhorrence and unmeasured dread Of your undaunted sins against the light [9]

Red sins of lust, of envy and of greed, Of guilty gain extorted from the weak, Of brotherhood traduced and God denied.
All this have they beheld without revolt, And borne the brunt in agonizing prayer. For those deep strains of blood that flow from
times
Older than Egypt, whence the dark man gave The rudiments of learning to all lands, Have been a strong constraint. And they have
dreamed
a peculiar mission under heaven, And felt the force of unexampled gifts
Of
That make for them a rare inheritance
The The
gift of cheerful confidence in
gift of
men, calm endurance, solacing
An
The
infinite capacity for pain,
gift of an unfeigned humilit}^ That blinds the eyes of strident arrogance
And And
bigot pride to that philosophy that far-glancing wisdom which
it veils,
The gift of feeling for all forms of life, Of deathless hope in trouble, and of wide
Adaptive power without a parallel In chronicles of men, and over all, And more than all besides, the gift of God
Expressed in rhythmic miracles of song.
[10]
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
these are gifts, I said a thousand times
Richer than^Ophir, stronger than the might Of armament to conquer and to cureGifts destined yet to permeate the earth, To heal it of its mighty heresies,
Arid
all its
brutal blasphemy of war.
So viewing all my brothers in distress, Hindered and cursed and aliens, I have wept And prayed for them in solitude apart, That they might know themselves a chosen folk,
Unrecognized
Jbut potent,
chastened
still,
But chartered to be ministers of truth, To search' the depths of spirit, to go forth To woo and win a perfect self-control, To breed strong children exercised in prayer, Shunning as they would death the patterns set By those who hold the kingdoms and the sway. So might they with the pregnant years become
New New
With
' '
arbiters of social destiny, health veins in the body politic,
A high-commissioned
all
people, mingled through
the bloods of man, and, counselling Peace, and the healing grace of brotherhood,
Have power
in this
dark world to lighten

it
it,
And power
in this
dead world to make
live."
When
through my being, like a lyre strung, These winds of temporal occurrence sweep, I hear a kind of music, high and low,
And
ranging from the tortured earth to heaven, Throbbing with tragic cadence to express The passing and the coming life of man.
And though
stirred
the tempests rage
and earth be
To her foundations, though the lucid air Become a menace, and the beauteous world Be bathed in fire, I am undismayed. The cataclysmic travail prophecies The dawn of one world-conscience for all men, The breaking up of caste and race and creed, The warfare of all war against itself.
And
hence in my low place this living peace That grows and deepens, while the staggered frames
Of ancient kingdoms reel beneath a weight Of crimes so vast that genius strives in vain To compass them in thought for out of this, The spirit saith, shall issue other breeds Soul-burdened like my brothers, and like them Despised and trammeled, but sent forth to teach
:
That nothing in the changing world endures But truth and love and brotherhood and God.
[12]
My
Race
life
should keep and gloomy face, hope-forlorn

lost, if I
were
And brood upon my ills, and weep And mourn the travail of my race.
Who are my brothers ? Only those Who were "my own complexion swart? Ah no, but all through whom there flows
The blood-stream of
a
manly
heart.
Wherever the light of dreams is shed, And faith and love to toil are bound,
There
will I stay to
break
my
bread,
For there
my
kinsmen
will be found.
Tuskegee
this
busy
labor
without
rest? WHEREFORE
Is it an idle dream to which we cling, Here where a thousand dusky toilers sing Unto the world their hope? "Build we our best By hand and thought," they cry, "although un
blessed.
' '
So the great engines throb and anvils ring,

so the thought is wedded to the thing But what shall be the end, and what the test ? Dear God, we dare not answer, we can see Not mam' steps ahead, but this we know
;
And
If all our toilsome building is in vain, Availing not to set our manhood free, If envious hate roots out the seed we sow,
The South
will
wear eternallv a
stain.
['4]
Freedom
In us, the children of a chastened race. Long, long ago in thy benignant face Our fathers saw "the gleam." They meekly
FREEDOM,
wrought
let
thy
perfect
work
be
brought Their shackled limbs in faith to thee, and sought Thy heart with prayer; and thou didst rend
apace
The bonds of men who leaned upon thy grace,
We
Their spirits with a tuneful patience fraught. call upon thee now no more in chains
Such
as
our fathers wore
from these we're
freed
But clanging still the fetters of the soul. "The gleam" we follow weakly, for we need The Freedom of a sturdy self-control
.
Jim Crow
BY Wide
Long Even
Avhat dread logic, by what grand neglect, as our nation, doth this relic last
This relic of old sterile customs past since into deep shame without respect? I whom this contrivance fain would teach
low submission, pray within my soul That these my masters may not reap the dole
Of finding remedy beyond
their reach.
In lofty mood I mount the reeking box, And travel through the land. So Terence once
Moved in old Rome, so wondrous paradox Moved Esop in old Greece, the dwarf and dunce, Then I reflect how their immortal wit
Makes the world laugh with mockery of
it.
[16]
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
"So Quietly"
News item from the New York Times on the lynch ing of a Negro at Smithville, Ga., December 21, 1919 that mem "The train was boarded so quietly bers of the train crew did not know that the mob had seized the Negro until informed by the prisoner's guard after the train had left the town coroner's inquest held immediately returned the ver dict that West came to his death at the hands of un
. . .
identified men.-"
SOAnd dragged him out

flaw
quietly they stole
upon
their prey
to death, so
without
Their black design, that they to
whom
the law
Gave him
in keeping, in the broad, bright day,

;
Were not aware when he was snatched away And when the people, with a shrinking awe,
' '
The horror of that mangled body saw, was all that they could By unknown hands
' '
!
say.
So, too,
my
country, stealeth on apace
The
Or
soul-blight of a nation. Not with drums trumpet blare is that corruption sown,
[17]

But quietly now in the open face Of day, now in the dark and when
Stern truth will never write,
it
comes,
"By
hands un
known."
[18]
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
Cora
WOULD
that you
knew my Cora,
Her
Lithe, high-minded, buoyant maid, face is dusk like the twilight shade,
But her fine teeth gleam, and her eyes are bright With a heartening mirth and a tender light. I would that you knew my Cora.
would you could see my Cora. Sometimes we walk upon the street And many a fairer lady meet
I
:
With gay apparel and lofty air They haven't so much as a glance For passing dusky Cora.
Then I look over at Cora. Her step is light, her head is high, The joy of living is in her eye,
to spare
She seems a part of all she sees It is one and the same if the ladies please
To
look or not to Cora.

[19]

Once when
I
walked with Cora
We
hungered in the tedious way And turned aside for bread, but they
Who
kept the place in whispers said

fed,
That dusky folk they never Folk like myself and Cora.
I would you had then seen Cora. The surge of pride that filled her heart
Compelled one burning tear to start, But she brushed it by with a queenly shame, Nor spoke one word of wrath or blame, But went forth blithely as she came, And I went forth with Cora.
20J
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
To
a Caged Canary in a Negro Restaurant

little
A cage THOU cannot
golden bird of happy song'!

restrain the rapturous joy
Which thou dost shed abroad. Thou dost employ Thy bondage for high uses. Grievous wrong
Is thine yet in thy heart glows full and strong The tropic sun, though far beyond thy flight, And though thou flutterest there by day and
;
night
Above the clamor of a dusky throng. So let my will, albeit hedged about By creed and caste, feed on the light within So let my song sing through the bars of doubt With light and healing where despair has been So let my people bide their time and place,
;
hindered but a sunny-hearted race.
[21]
Mater Dolorosa
God's presence to the full. The city street May wrap me in the tumult and the heat Of futile striving bitter winds may blow With winter-wilting freeze of hail and snow,
;
MOTHER,
know
there
are
moments when
And
But
all
in
my hopes lie shattered in defeat my heart the springtime blossoms sweet,

;
And
heaven seems very near the way
I go.
These moments are the angels of that prayer Which thou has breathed for many a troubled
year
With bended knee and swarthy-streaming face Uphold him, Father, with a double care
' '
:
He
but mortal, yet his days must bear The world cross, and the burden of his race."
is
[22]
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
The Black Man's
Bit
to pulpit,
the barber's place is rife, And the shoe shop and the supper table hum, With the tale of Dixie 's black men who have
THERE'S
talk
from school
and
shared the mighty strife For that freedom of the better time
to come.
Every mother's eye is brighter, every father's back is straighter,
And our girls are tripping lightly And by none except a Teuton, or
traitor,
in their pride, a slacker, or a
Will the right to their elation be denied.
They said they were too slow, too dull, too this and that to do it, They couldn't match the method of the Hun, And then to arm a million why, the land would
surely rue
it
If a million blacks
But right won
were taught to use a gun. out, and they went in at all de
tractors smiling; They learned as quick as
any how
to shoot,
[23]

They took the prize ing and piling,
at loading ships,
and
rivet
And
trained a thousand officers to boot.
And when
they went 'twas with a boon no others had been bringing, For whether with a pick or with a gun, They lightened every labor with a wondrous sort
of singing,
And
turned the pall of battle into fun.
the
Frenchman was a marvel, and
the
Yankee
was a wonder,
And
But
the British line was like a granite wall,

for singing as they leaped Kaiser's thunder,
of Dixie beat
away
them
to
draw the
The swarthy sons
all.
And now
that they have helped to break the
rattling
Hunnish
sabre,
They'll trail the Suwanee Eiver back again To Dixie home, and native song, and school and honest labor,
To be
as
men among
their fellow-men.
No
special thanks or praise they'll ask, no clap ping on the shoulder

their bit,
They did
it
and won, and
all
men know
And
And
Dixie will be proud of them, and grown a

little older,
wiser, too, will
welcome them and show
it.
[25]
To
the Chinese
ancient brothers of the East.
hear your voices REJOICE,

I
thrill across the seas,
unto the marriage feast Of waking men. Did not the Japanese Put on the wedding garments bright and new Though long denied by silly creeds of skin. Rise ye, and break the "cake of custom"
hail you, too,
And
through,
And,
at the
New World
brothers,
if
Faint not,
bidding, enter in. the forward way
Must
lie
through
fire
and famine, death and
blood.
There follow you the kindling sympathies Of other trammeled millions, and some day These shall pour forth in swarthy hordes and
flood
Some worthy
field,
and be your staunch
allies.
[26]
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
Matto Grosso
In the unexplored fastnesses of Brazil,
known
as
Matto Grosso, the great South American scientist and statesman, Rondon, has proved the power of unafraid democracy to elevate a backward race. His great work has brought hope and inspiration to
millions of colored people here in the northern con
tinent.
Of THY
the unfathomed soul of
fastnesses are like the untried depths man as dark,
As terrible-, as full of healing balm, With danger lurking where no eye can
see,
Trackless and wild, yet docile to the touch
Of sympathy, and pregnant with all good. The shadows brooding like a guilty thought About thee bar the long-besieging sun, And lure the mind to prophecy and fear.
Thou
art a mighty mother boasting in inexhaustible fecundity.
An
What
breathing,
struggling,
to life
furtive,
feral
thing
Hast thou not brought

teems
Thy
vastness

With such an upward urge of flaming trees, Of vine and herb and flower and weed and shrub, Of little swarming insect parasites, Of fiery creatures bent upon their prey, Of birds with all the colors God has made, That nature could herself dream nothing more.
And
child-like folk.
thou hast bred a race of primal men They stand within the doors
Of the great mansion-house of fateful time, Gazing within the chambers of the past Where all their kinsmen died in tragedy,
And
with a
little fleeting
smile of hope
to
As they
look out
upon the times
come
Surviving naked men, the challengers Of judgment and of all democracy.
And
yet thou art a virgin. Thou dost hold untouched treasures all inviolate, Thy Till men with wider knowledge, finer skill,
With
With
Shall
That makes
passionate devotion, and a faith it joy to bind their lives to thee
all their fortunes and unstinted toil, woo thy heart and win thee to themselves. Then from thy womb shall spring another breed Of new-world people teeming to possess
Thy
And
future, to unlock thy nameless stores use the fullness of thy virile strength
[28]
To build a
fair
new nation
of free
men
In justice, mercy, brotherhood and truth. wild demesne, thou art a wilderness, yet thou art to me a promised land
Israel
And
More wonderful than that which
Sought by the special leadership of God.
For one there is already called to be More than thy Moses, one who holds the wand Of modern science that shall make thy voice Articulate, and link thy largesse up With all its multiplying benefits,
By open pathways
to the waiting
world
Rondon, thy bounteous father.

Let
me
tell
How
thy
warm
southern winds have wafted on
His name
to stir
our harsher northern clime,
How
Have
I,
myself, son of a race oppressed, seen afar there in thy tropic sun
His banner flying high with God's good will Emblazoned bold upon it, and how all My troubled brothers grasp anew at life With firmer confidence because of him, 'Tis he, and such as he alone, whose hand Can mend the riven fabric of the world,
Or
use the fragile instruments of peace

In that dread surgery whose end shall be
To lop from off the body of mankind The cancerous, fetid, tumor-growth of war.
Land
of
all
marvels, I will end
my
song,
My
By
prayerful song of honor unto thee,
deep thanksgiving to thy mother soul

forest, hill
For pouring down from
Unnumbered multitudes
of
little
and glade streams
And
springs that grow to rivers rushing on To find the sea. Where is the like of these For number or for meaning Where is earth
!
So laved, so watered without ceasing, or So nurtured into all productiveness? For ages have those waters run their course At length unto the ocean, blending there
With all the tides that beat upon the shores Of every habitable land. In vain Have they for ages gathered there to sing That life is one, and man and God are one, And love and truth and beauty all are one.
[30]
POEMS OF MY PEOPLE
Self-Determination
THE PHILOSOPHY OP THE AMERICAN NEGRO

things
we
will not do, in spite of all

;
That demons plot for our decline and fall We bring four benedictions which the meek Unto the proud are privileged to speak, Four gifts by which amidst all stern-browed
races
FOUR
We
move with kindly hearts and shining
faces.
We ivill not hate. Law, custom, creed and caste, All notwithstanding, here we hold us fast. Down through the years the mighty ships of
state
Have
all
been broken on the rocks of hate.
and multiply and refuse to die. The Indian stood unyielding, stark and grim; We saw him perish, and we learned of him To mix a grain of philosophic mirth With all the crass injustices of earth.
will not cease to laugh
We
We
slough
off trouble,

We
will not use the ancient carnal tools
These never won, yet centuries of schools, Of priests, and all the work of brush and pen
Have not
availed to win the wisest
men
shell
:
From
futile faith in battleship
and
We
We
No No
But
see
them
fall,
and mark that

loyalty.
folly well.
will not
waver in our
strange voice reaches us across the sea; crime at home shall stir us from this soil.
is
Ours
raised above
the guerdon, ours the blight of toil, it by a faith sublime
We
choose to suffer here
and bide our
time.
And
if we hold to this, we dream some day Our countrymen will follow in our way
.
POEMS OF THE TIMES
POEMS OF THE TIMES
A Call
to Poets
1
up from dalliance with
little
things,
RISEpoets of
Is
all
lands.
Your golden age
now, and all the world your heritage. The nations perish till ye sweep the strings
With re-creative music. He that sings With power now to calm the peoples' rage
Will bind the future to his tutelage, And give the heavy-laden present wings.
is your lost dominion? Once ye framed heaven of beauty pillared firm in peace, And ye were called the shepherds of the soul By what default was that high priesthood
Where
shamed ?
How
To win the human
did the magic of your music cease heart, and keep it whole
2
The world is all a wrack and battle-storm. Stand not abashed while the red warriors break The heart of Christ, and blundering statesmen
quake
[35]

In impotence. Build in great verse that norm By which to mold this chaos back to form. Let not one line be lawless, lest ye make A wider wreckage still. Now must ye wake The lyre of peace with passion deep and warm. Tell mortals that the tides of night and day,
The dewdrop, and the planet's mighty swing life and death itself, must all obey The eternal harmonies that poets sing, And that to raise up beauty over war Is all ye come to earth from heaven for.
Nay,
[36]
POEMS OF THE TIMES
The Ships
WHAT Or
feel
heart of man did never glow To see the great ships come and go, what miracles are these
Upon the highway of the seas. Whenever I go to the harbor shore The wonder holds me more and more
Until
Out
' '
spirit yearns to cry to the vessels drifting by
my
Bold breasters of the wind and tide, On what far errands do you ride ?
Your funnels fume and your engines strain To speed you over the tided main, And all the harbor is gay and bright Where your colors fly and the waves curl white
From many
a sturdy-cleaving keel,
But do you ride for woe or weal ? And when the weary course is done,
What good for human kind is won?" And the stately vessels drifting by
Seem thus
"We
By
to deign a prompt reply herald the fate of human souls

:
a thousand
ways
to a
[37]
thousand
goals,

And
set at naught wind, tide and weather To bring the tribes of the earth together. Whether the skies are gray or blue
We
Lest
plough the mounting billows through, we should seem to give suspense
To the mighty plan of Providence. For God has said His people all Are one, and they shall hear the call Each of the other, and each shall speed
In His good time to the other's need.
And they shall come from northern snows, From the torrid isle where the monsoon blows, From the farthest plains and mountain tips, And all go down to the sea in ships. And none shall have a gift or skill,
Or any power of mind or will, Or any good the hand hath wrought, Or any luring dream or thought Of truth or beauty yet to be
The graces of humanity, But we must bear it safe and fast, Or flash it out from the top of the mast
Upon
To
all
the pulses of the air the people everywhere.
We
And And
carry the tares with the wholesome grain, the joy we bear is born of pain,
death
is
with us and disease,

[38]
POEMS OF THE TIMES

And we must fare through Till men of every land and
Shall
crimsoned seas
race
know each
all all shall
And And And
other face to face, shall take and all shall give,

learn at last to live
' '
labor for the sovereign good Of universal brotherhood.
[39]
Ode
to Patriotism
goddess, though thy devotees
Are FAIR men of every land and tongue,
Thy
heart they never yet could please;
And though thy majesty is sung By statesman, warrior and bard,

Still on thy brow a stern regard Proves thy disdain, and quickening their fears, Brings them before thy fane in bitterness and
tears.
As when
a suitor, plighting
all
His troth unto some high-souled maid,
Makes protestations prodigal, But finds her loftily afraid,
And
still
reluctant to aver
Like passion, till that love of her Enters the temple of her purer mind As homage less for one than for all womankind
So, holier mistress, hast thou
shown
Why Why
still
on horrid days, our best hopes are overthrown

fall
we
[40]
POEMS OF THE TIMES

In spite of all our prayer and praise For thou wouldst have our love expand Beyond mere race or bounded land,
;
And thou wouldst test our proffered troth to thee By what we deeply crave for all humanity
.
Build up again our broken faith, Fair deity; unloose the gyves
Of hate allay the gruesome wraith Of murderous war and lead our lives Back to the peace that springs of love For man as man, and mounts above
;
teach our wrathful time Land, caste, or creed That brotherhood is still man's destiny sublime.
!
The Launching
of the Quistconk
WE
A
Our
To
Down her
launch more than a ship today. smooth ways unto the tide
in every seam and stay nation's marshalled pride. mighty Before her stern, majestic hulk
She bears
distant higher vision sees Crime, frightfulness and treason skulk

certain
doom on humbled
knees.
We We
launch more than a ship today: hear more than our chieftain's word.
The earth, the air, the watery way Are thronged with millions who are stirred To will that this good ship shall be, With all her strength and treasure store,
And
all
her Christian chivalry,
The herald of a thousand more. And these shall follow in her wake
In ever quickening degrees,
Until the endless line shall
make
That bridge of ships across the seas, At whose far end the hosts of God
POEMS OF THE TIMES

Shall stand with
To
raise
up
And
give to
power of earth, from the sod freedom her new birth.

all
the
justice
[43]
The Heart
men
of
of the
World
the
war and
men
of state
THE Grope
and hate, The great guns range upon the seas, But the heart of the world is not in these. The weary chronicles still tell How tyranny and tyrant fell, But the heart of the world, Lord, how far
in the sloughs of blood
From
captain, kaiser, king or czar
The empty pomp of force and pride Has lived its brutal day and died,
And
Have
all
fled before the
the gods of arrogance winds of chance,

fate conspire to plan
While time and
highway for the rights of man. And now where toilers feel the sting Of utter need and suffering, Where men are tortured from belief, And women manacled to grief,
AVhere childhood walks in wild despair, The heart of all the world is there.
[44]
POEMS OF THE TIMES
Clemenceau
HE
And
rode on tempests through a span of

years
That bridged two generations. Round his name Blew all the fitful winds of praise and blame France heaped 011 him her plaudits and her
:
sneers.
he was not deceived he had his fears But kept his patriot zeal bright as a flame; And when upon his land the fire storms came, France gave him all her trust with grateful tears. So when the crazed assassin failed, we said ''May the kind will of God preserve him yet. Far nobler men may rise when he is dead, But this of him mankind will not forget:
When
He
earth shook with the tramping hordes of
hell,
stood across their path,
and held
it
well.
'
'
[45]
The Founder
To THE STATUE OF WlLLIAM PENN, ClTY HALL, PHILADELPHIA, WHEN PEACE WAS PROCLAIMED, NOVEMBER 11, 1918.
than wind the
mighty
message
came SWIFTER
That tyranny had
fallen, that the
crime
By which the great high traitor of our time Had fixed upon his race the foulest fame, And covered the whole earth with dread and
shame
And all the spawn Was purged away

Wrath
of hell 's
at last
own murk and grime, by that sublime
of the world that rose in freedom 's name.
Then long-leashed passion broke upon the air And shook the city cries of joy and grief,
Wild, clamorous thanksgiving everywhere
And
That God had brought mankind again never was a people known to be So caught away in utter ecstacy
[46]
.
relief,
POEMS OF THE TIMES
Then lifted I mine eyes to where thy face, Turned from the lurid night where king and
throne
Were
sinking with the sun, looked forth alone Steadfastly to the dawn. Around thy base The tumult swept, but in that lofty place
Thy form without

Stood
like a
a motion or a tone, prophet who had long outgrown
The
' '
fleeting passions of the
human
race.
Arid one calm hand extended seemed to say, Through travail of the ages, blood and pain,
Freedom indeed
build ye
is
born anew today
Nor Can
the bulwarks of her reign, dare to dream the shouting triumph

r
now
won
et avail until
her work
is
done."
[47]
To
All Leaders of
Men
men
will
THREE
Your
things there are that Leaders of men, beware

!
do
calling
and
election true
Will shine, if they have faith that you Their stubborn purpose share.
Men
ivill
see
men
as only
!
men,
masters, take ye heed No one shall hold the rights of ten, No mortal be divine again
No
counsel, pact, or creed.
Men
will be bold to follow thought. captains, ye shall find The peoples of the earth distraught
being merely led and taught, But now they have a mind.
By
And men
will share the wealth they make To this of all attend. The worker for the worker's sake Will prove his power to give and take,
That ancient greed may end.

[48]
POEMS OF THE TIMES

Go not to wordy halls of state, Ye wise that can discern
This threefold tidal pull of fate That rocks the world too late, too late The statesmen stoop to learn.
But through the ways where labor stalks Portentous with its load,
The soul of God's great future talks, The genius of His purpose walks, And there must be your road.
[49]
Brixton Prison
TRIBUTE TO LORD MAYOR MACSWINEY OF DIED ON A HUNGER STRIKE FOR THE CAUSE OF IRISH FREEDOM.
CORK WHO
THE keep a martyr's limbs May
guard about thy somber walls

confined,
But not the dauntless soul that calls The challenged conscience of mankind.
MacSwiney, wasting in the dark Forespent of all his manly use, Transforms a life into the spark That set the fires of freedom loose.
He would
Attempt
not bend before the rude
to
make
his life a lie;
He He
scorned to taste oppression's food; chose to be a man and die.
Brixton prison, surely thou
Art raised above thy base design Thy terrors all are gone, and now Thou hast become a nation's shrine.
:
[So]
POEMS OF THE TIMES

And
Now thy rule thou, lord mayor Far out from mourning Cork expands Thy spirit has become a school For patriot heroes in all lands.
!
[50
Lines Written in the Alps
Above
Chamounix
yield with sweet surrender all my heart In fee to endless beauty, here to bide And count as nothing worth the flight of days. Nor could I break at will the subtle spell
HERE
To
had one voice almost persuaded me
That held me, as
it
hath held
many
more,
With power
that
was more than argument.

!
Forbear attempt at vain expression here Poet and painter both alike despair:
surfeit of all grandeur overwhelms The boldest gift, and dwarfs imagining. Here silence, and unutterable thought, And the blest gift of feeling must suffice.
No monarch
could be raised to higher state
careless shepherd girl That minds the grazing of the tinkling kine. Your meanest seat is heather royal-hued Girdled with nodding berries black and red, And flaming poppies sated with the sun,
[55]
Than you or yonder
Your carpet
satin green, your body-guard Soft winds that blow a cooling for your brow To mock fan-bearers at the Sultan's throne.
shall not fail
Dear music
you: evermore
note
Upon your ear shall sound the clear flute Of dripping water, or the happier tone
Of slender streams that leap from bolder walls Singing of freedom from the tyrant ice. Or, nobler still, up from the vale shall rise The river music of assembled streams
In symphonies of service to the world.
Look down upon that valley there behold Sweet homes with human kindness heaven-dow
:
ered.
Those husbandmen have not yet pawned their

souls
For bagatelles of profit, young men there Are not yet sickly, and the rosy dames Bear children that go springing to the fields. They make their valley plain lie in the sun Like some rich quilting wonderfully wrought In squares and angles of productiveness.
Nor
is
the blessed Christ there travestied
By And
sterile
worship lavish of all forms ceremonies, while its devotees

[56]
still a long-offended God scorn of all his humbler sons. By lofty Those reverent men give fearless benison
Dishonor
To Mongol, Semite, African or Turk: They plant their crucifixes by the road, Or rear their cherished shrines upon the rocks As precious tokens and remembrancers To all men of the Universal Cross.
For proof of God's unfettered pleasure here, Look up about those summits where he pours The light of morning round the monstrous ice, Round frosted" peaks, and hanging frigid plains,
Until they shower
down a shining joy Upon thy lifted head, fill full thy soul With gladness that transfigures all the
vale,
And make
The
the terrible a thing to love. white refulgence of those argent snows
With images
Shall follow thee throughout the happy day of purity and peace,
And
nevermore shalt thou be what thou wert.
Or, if at noon thy heart be prone to droop For sheer satiety of loveliness, Or beauty fail of strength, up through some
cloud
Soft as etheral eider-down will rise
[57]

The nakedness
of brazen granite towers
;
That were the pillars of the primal world Eons of fury have they set at naught,
And all the gnawing of the tooth of time And these at noon shall be thy ministers When they hold up to God their gleaming
:
crowns,
And
call
thy
human weakness back
to strength.
And 0, when downward rides the lordly sun Behind those summits, richer guerdons wait To hearten him who lingers to behold. Then the flushed earth strains up her jeweled head Towards the red passion of the bending skies Then the bright trees, the high green fields, the
;
crags
That pierce the clouds with menace, and the ice That shines upon them, all are built away In steep sierras like some glorious stair For angels mounting towards the face of God.
And when
sleep,
at last the night has brought theej
Thy couch shall be companioned by some dream Of what thine eyes have seen and thy heart felt;
And
though the thought of never waking more
Steal o'er thy frame, thou shalt be satisfied.

[58]
To
art far
the Smartweecl
1
more
to
me than
blight and
THOU
bane
Alone, as rustics deem, who thus deny Thy regal will and martial quality.
beheld the angered swain Charge through thy ranks with horse and steel
Often have
And
Till
in vain, often have I seen the children try
With gleaming blade
to make thy banners fly every scion of thy stock was slain. But when the havoc tarried I have seen
Thy
striplings spring again to take the field,
Choke the strong tuber, rout the bean forlorn, Shade every valued plant with insolent green,
And wave
Constrain the earth to their prolific yield, their purpling tops above the corn.
2
With plow and chain I saw the husbandman Tear up thy roots to wither in the heat,
[59]

And drag
thy foliage down to make a seat For the brown odorous furrow-crest that ran
Across the
mead where thy
But every blade and Rose up transfigured
stalk that
career began met defeat

:
And wrought
into sheaves of wheat, a conquest by a subtler plan. Ah, then I knew that he is more than blind And dim of thought who cannot surely see
In thee the symbol of a world of men Swept down to darkness by the torrid wind
Blown from
In
the caves of fate eternally,
whom
posterity will rise again.
[60]
To William James
he watched the silent stream
Of consciousness, DEVOTEDLY
and from the shifting
brink, In lucid phrase, taught thousands
how
to think.
No
straightened
logic's
thrall,
he prized
the
gleam
Of truth in all experience the dream To him was precious too. He dared to link Reality with wonder, and to sink The plumb of thought down where all mysteries
:
teem.
Where
is the light we knew upon his face The zest for knowledge, searching and intense ? Gone out for aye in darkness deep and strange ? Or do they now at last find scope and place
Where Thales
still
And
Heraclitus broods,
propounds the elements, " 'Tis
only Change?"
[61]
To
I
Mrs. Jane B. Taylor

to the winter
compare thee
is
snow?
thy heart, but never cold: What though thy locks be changed from sunny gold To silver, still that perfect brow doth glow With human interest, still thou sayest, "Go Straight forward, trust the dream, be strong, and hold The faith that love, with all its griefs untold, Is better than the fairest thing we know."
So spotless SHALL
And snow
truth
So when the winter of my days shall fall, lies white upon the barren ground Where I have wandered long, and learned the
Of
life,
let
Still
and drunk the wormwood and the my bosom, full of years, be found bearing the immortal heart of youth.
gall,
Two Women
as
my wonted
task was done
And JUST day was fast declining, Two women passed, the low red sun
Upon
their faces shining.
Their ample cloaks were gathered warm Against the winter weather; Their -heads were bare, and arm in arm
They crossed the lawn
together.
They seemed two spirits to inspire Even a mortal craven, For one had hair like a flame of fire, And one like the wing of a raven.
step, they passed along In joyous, bright communing, And in my heart there came a song
I
With springy
found delight in crooning.
Come
forth,
And
Or
choose, if
masters, if yau may, you are able,
The golden brightness of the day,

the deep, deep night in sable.
The Actress
not her days are but an idle show
Of THINK
artificial
Or
that her
meed
of
manners, speech and dress, honor should be less

lives
Because her heart
where the footlights
glow
the garish scene, with weal and woe Of mimic passion. Let the happiness Of her brief hour be full that bright success Is purchased far more dearly than we know.
Upon
Pity, the
wrapt spectators
!
little
sense
Her nobler grace To "hold the mirror up," And thereby win the favor of our eyes Were well but what applause can recommense
;
The tempered soul that drains the Of a continual self-sacrifice

!
bitter
cup
[64]
The Piano-Player
with
shall be DISTRAUGHTfound
care,
I
said,
"Here
A
A
solace for great losses. Long ago, One gentle soul could lure away my woe Upon Beethoven's music; for he crowned
world of sorrow with a heaven of sound. Thanks to the genius that has willed it so
Those deathless harmonies again
may
flow
From
out this perforated scroll unwound." Then wondrous came the swelling chords, and sweet
strain
;
The troubled minor
but
how changed
From
the dear tones that brought
my
younger
heart
When
chastened wealth of happiness complete, o'er the board her perfect fingers
ranged
With such expressive grace

start!
that tears would
[65]
Prevision
FROM THE PORTUGESE
OF ALBERTO DE OLIVEIRA
I
I
KNEW thy smile was but a passing spell,
I loved it well. And yet I loved it loved the radiant meaning of thine eyes,
Knowing
that they would fail me, and likewise, breathed upon the wind, I had no Though
choice
Now
I
to love the passion of thy voice. has vanished all is ended now Enchanted voice, enamored glance. In vain
still
But
all
knew
it
would be
so,
and know not how

complain.
It
can avail
me now
if I
[66]
To
a Nobly-Gifted Singer
the pleasanee of her face
Telleth of an inward grace; In her dark eyes I have seen
ALL
Sorrows of the Nazarene
In the proud and perfect mould Of her body I behold,
Rounded in a single view The good, the beautiful, the true And when her spirit goes up-winging
;
On
sweet air of artless singing
Surely the heavenly spheres rejoice In union with a kindred voice.
[67]
Katerina Breshkovskaya
IIOU shalt die in the midst of thy battles, They said of this mother of thought,
' '
When
she bared to her countrymen, bared to
the world, The evil a tyrant had wrought.
But the tyrant was strong, and
And
his minions, they harried her out of the land, To the blight and the death of the frozen
And
steppes, the word she
had uttered was banned.
And And
But that word was a fire, and prospered, her thought was a wind and a rain,
it
beat on the palace that stood on the
sand,
And
it fell,
and the tyrant was

fall in
slain.
who would not What death could
such battles,
a mortal prefer, In the world-girding fight for honor and right, To the glory of dj'ing like her!
[68]
Christmas at Melrose
a little space about our ancient place, Lay by your wonted troubles here And have a turn of Christmas cheer. These sober walls of weathered stone Can tell a romance of their own, And these wide rooms of devious line
home with me
COME
And browse
Are kindly meant in their design. Sometimes the north wind searches through, But he shall not be rude to you.
We'll light a log of generous girth
For winter comfort, and the mirth Of healthy children you shall see About a sparkling Christmas tree.
Eleanor, leader of the fold,
Hermione with heart of
gold,
Elaine with comprehending eyes,
And two more
yet of coddling size, Nathalie pondering all that's said, And Mary of the cherub head-
All these shall give
you sweet content
And
care-destroying merriment,
[69]
While one with true madonna grace Moves round the glowing fire-place Where father loves to muse aside And grandma sits in silent pride. And you may chafe the wasting oak, Or freely pass the kindly joke To mix with nuts and home-made cake
And
apples set on coals to bake.
fine carol we will sing In honor of the Manger-King, Or hear great Milton's organ verse,
Or some
Or
What
Plato's dialogue rehearse Socrates with his last breath
Sublimely said of life and death. These dear delights we fain would share
With friend and kinsman everywhere, And from our door see them depart Each with a little lighter heart.
[70]
The Metropolitan Tower

down
LOOK soaring tower, upon the

Where men below
like termites
securely from thy dizzy height,

little street
seem to crawl In insignificance. Thou couldst not fear Comparison with any mighty pile From Babel or the pyramids till now. The clamor .and confusion round thy base Shall never vex thy summit there the sun Shall sit while twilight gathers at thy feet. Thy shoulders mock the straining of the storms, And if the earth be loyal to her trust, Old time shall waste his tooth in wasting thee. Thou art as wonderful to me as Blanc
:
Fiji Yama or Niagara These are the work of God, but thou of Man. It is thy privilege to symbolize In giant form the saving truth of art That beauty's handmaid is utility,
Or
And
strength their bond of love.
City Park
world roars
like the sea
travail of the
THE Throughout
And
all
the city-traffic, strife
and
haste,
The The sounding
the petty trade wherein men waste noblest graces of humanity.
streets are thronged incessantly AYith feverish hordes driven and overpaced By the sharp whips of need, with little taste
Or time
for that
which
here
life
was meant
to be.
But here
er,
is
hope
is
a rescued spot,
Where beauty Where
waits in fountain, grass and flow
children play, and
men
turn from the
hot, mill of labor for a quiet hour To feel the cooling wash of the summer breeze, And glimpse the calm of heaven through the
Mad
trees.
POEMS OP APPRECIATION
The Symphony
THINK
there scarcely can be given Nobler harmonies in heaven

;
Seraph harps and voices swelling Could not be more heart-compelling For these instruments have found
And
All the ministries of sound, their shriving tones have

priests
won me
Far more good than
have done me.
What- troublous passion-stirring conies
Upon the thunder-rolling drums What weakness could withstand the Blown by the bold courageous horns What grace is that the spirit needs
!
scorns
!
Uncompassed by the lowly
reeds,
And who
Oh,
I
could keep a truce with sins That heard the pleading violins
!
was weary when I came To listen, for the sham and shame
poverty of mortal fare
souls to bear.
And
But,
Are heavy weights for
when I left, a flame of light Went with me through the solemn

[73]
night,

I
walked
in splendor in a place
Large as illimitable space, Peace through the mists of doubting smiled, And life and death were reconciled.
[74]
The Borglum Statue of Lincoln in the Court House Square, Newark, N. J.

is no other monument Raised up to merit out of brass or stone So beautiful as this it stands alone,
THINK
there
Outreaching far the artist's first intent, By grace of one sweet human incident
.
Round
An
the high, horsed heroes I have undisturbed indifference has grown,

all
known
Which
But he
neither time nor

is
wonder can prevent. on the ground, and children play
Upon his knees, and stroke the earnest face That shines with their caresses, and all day He is their comfort in the public place The rigid bronze itself cannot conceal That sheltering heart which little children feel.
:
[75]
She Will
Come
a tedious day Of unavailing toil, Weary of heart and brain, Disconsolate and faint,
AFTER
seek
my
friendly couch
For
respite and release, Repeating as I go
"Tomorrow
she will come."
The darkness and the deep,

Cool silence of the night Enwrap me, and I dream.
Then
The
Upon
happy place a far green hill sunlight shines again.
in a
There the
warm winds
distil
From
hyacinth and rose
Their sweet quintessences To be the breath of life,
There singing streams flow down
From
fountains crystalline,
[76]
And
on their mossy banks The Nereids and fauns Dance to the reeds of Pan In glad abandonment. There the lithe Oreads Ply every game and sport
In honor of the trees,
And jocund
forests shake Their ancient sides in mirth.
Color and light and shade, And all dear harmonies
Of poesy and truth
And
fellowship are there. There the great boon of health
And
innocent content
Lead on the grateful hours,
And every heart is free, And pain arid aching thought, And tedium and care
Are
alien enemies.
And when
the sun retires
Behind the arras
drawn
Across the stage of day, The night begins a new

Succession of delights
With moon, and golden
stars,
And
blessed memories
[77]
Of music that has ceased,
And
Then
a wide heaven of dreams.

I
''This
is
awake and say, the day she comes."
[78]
Spring
are the maiden promises of spring, voice comes wandering like some mut ed tone
SWEET
Her
From
far-off
is
She wears
symphonies, and everything but a veiling lightly thrown
Around the form of beauty. She will seem Demurely chaste and reticent awhile, But in her eyes is youth's eternal dream
And all the light of passion in her smile. When the bold sun, her lover, argues down
Her shy reserves, then will her lips confess Her timorous deep desire, and she will crown Pier fealty with wondrous fruitfulness. And when her time is done, the earth will praise Her blithe and rosy breed of summer days.
[79]
The Dogwood
is
a rare delight to see^

tree
JT
The snow-bloom of the dogwood
All virginal against the sheen
When
Of April 's early budding green. violet and buttercup

Their timid heads are lifting up,
When dandelions fringe the pass And dews have gemmed the tender
He opens
to the
grass,
morning
:
light
His fragrant chalices of white. He cannot stay he comes to show That spring intends the heart shall know Yet once again the primal worth
Of all the loveliness of earth The cordial sky, the thought of flowers, Of friendly trees and singing bowers, The angel spirits all the day Around us where the children play,
fields of grain that promise soon Their cornucopias of June, And sweet romance that never fails
Fair
Of lovers and
of bridal veils.
[80]
A
Of
little
term of shade and sun,

ministry
is
And
all his
done.
A fitting
symbol seemeth he
:
all our fair mortality So youth departs so not for long Abides the ecstacy of song So brief are all the splendors laid
; ;
About the dawn
so faces fade
So dies the moonlight on a stream And so is life a little dream.
[81]
May Again
the southern winds at ease
Caress AGAIN the blossom-laden

"While o'er the heavens
Is writ in
trees,
gay
gold and hues of wine brig"htly blazoned script divine
May
comes again, sweet May.
Again what
glories
wake
;
the dawn,
And how old warrior trouble, wan And weak, is driven out
With what
clear throats the sparrowr s sing,
How
And how
musical the drone bee's wing, the children shout

!
Four walls are all too narrow now I follow where the sturdy plow Has turned the fragrant mead,
Where growing green things rise in line Like soldiers, or where soft-eyed kine
On new-spring
grasses feed.
[82]
But sweeter than all nature rife With song and bloom that zest of
life
Which fills the spirit up With joy new-born of homely food
And And
peace that whispers overruns my cup.
"God
is
good,"
what of the dreams that faded fast, Or the fickle "gleam" that glanced and passed, Or the wine that turned to rue.
1
hold a wand, as
May
can vow,
With magic healing, and somehow The heavens and earth are new.
In coat of hope-and-courage clad, am a bold Sir Galahad,
On
quests that cannot
fail,
For with clear vision now I see That one who daily walks with me Holds up the holy Grail.
[83]
L 'ENVOI
love, whose tender might checkered years of cloud and light Through Has been both balm and goad, Be thou my May when winters chill,
O wonder
My
Sarras set upon a

of
hill,
The ending
mv
road.
[84]
Summer Magic
SOSo many
many
cares to vex the day, fears to haunt the night,
My heart was all but weaned away From every lure of old delight. Then summer came, announced by June,
With beauty, miracle and mirth. She hung aloft the rounding moon,
She poured her sunshine on the earth, She drove the sap and broke the bud, She set the crimson rose afire, She stirred again my sullen blood,
And waked
Before
in
me
new
desire.
my
cottage door she spread
The
softest carpet nature weaves,
And
deftly arched above my head canopy of shady leaves. Her nights were dreams of jeweled skies, Her days were bowers rife with song, And many a scheme did she devise To heal the hurt and soothe the wrong. For on the hill or in the dell, Or where the brook went leaping by
[85]
Or where the fields would surge and With golden wheat or bearded rye,
I felt I
swell
her heart against my own, breathed the sweetness of her breath,

cark of time had flown,
of life
I
Till all the
And
was lord
and death.
[86]
Sacred Music at Sea

O'er the rolling waves abound in praise of Him Whose mighty hand upholds us, and who saves Our course from erring, though the way be dim.
!
dear music
Let harmony ARISE,
warring waters, and the sky That calms them on the red horizon's rim, And how the clouds are shepherded on high By winds that blow a tribute unto Him.
Tell of the
Speak, trombone, of the horrid ocean blast, Cry, cornet, to the finny hordes that swim
Far down where none can fathom, slow or On errands of sure service unto Him.
Say, baritones and altoes,
fast,
how
the light
Of
heaven guides the seraphim, Till the unshadowed sun dissolves the night To blaze a golden pathway unto Him.
stars in
Sound, drums and tubas, like a thunder storm, Scream clarionets, like bold sea gulls that skim The curling billow, on whose awful form
Their daily food
is
offered
[87]
up by Him.

Let rippling notes from the small piccolo Be for the compass tremulous and slim, But pointing through all gloom the way we go By laws immutably ordained of Him.
And
let the
heart of every instrument
Laud the good ship that heeds not any whim Of wind or flood, but faithful and unspent Makes for the harbor built of old by Him.
rise,
ye hymns of
all
the lands that be,
And
It is
if
for joy mine eyes shall overbrim, that though we all go down to sea
In ships
we cannot
drift afar
from Him.
[88]
Vacation End
the
charm
of radiant faces,
From FROM the days we took to dream, From From

Keen
the joy of open spaces, the mountain and the stream,
of sunlight, nerves a-tingle, of limb and clear of head,
to
Bronzed
Speed we back again
mingle
In the battle for our bread.
again the stern commanding is heard, And the tyrant, care, is standing Arbiter of deed and word. But the radiance is not ended,
Now
Of the chosen task
And
Which
the joy, whate'er the cost, those fleeting days attended
Never can be wholly lost. For we bring to waiting duty, To the labor and the strife,
And
Something of the sense of beauty, a fairer view of life.
[89]
Boys Swimming
THERE
Than
stream,
scarcely is a finer thing to see lithe lads swimming in a running
Cleaving the tide with breast-stroke gracefully, The waters slipping by with wave and gleam.
They make delight of one vast element Which mankind looked upon so long with
Taught unawares to be self-confident In venturing a hazardous career.
fear,
[90]
A Legend of the Easter
Children
legends say children were first To be abroad that Easter day When morning out of darkness burst,
THE
And
angels rolled the stone away.

feel
For children's hearts are quick to The deadening pall of mortal pain,
And children's hearts are first to heal When light and comfort come again. And they had loved the Lord Christ's face, And on His knees had laughed and cried, And heard Him say the heavenly place
Is
where
all child-like souls
abide.
tell
And
they had often heard
Him
Strong men, by pride and greed defiled, That they could never please Him well Till they were humble as a child And the} had heard the tale that grieves All little hearts: how one so dear Was nailed upon a cross with thieves, And tortured with a poisoned spear;
r
And how the temple's wondrous veil Was riven by the lightning stroke,
[91]

While, mingled with the women's wail, The earthquake and the thunder broke
And how
there
came from northern
seas
terrified
brigade of gulls,
Swept on by some unearthly breeze, To scream above the place of skulls; And how black night came down at noon, And ghosts, from graves that opened wide,
Skulked out beneath a blood-red moon,
When He
that loved the children died.
For two long days no girl or boy In Galilee or Jordan plain Could laugh or sing, for hope and joy In every little heart was slain. But when the earth, that third day morn,
Was
As never
flooded with such golden light since the world was born
to dazzle
Had come
human
sight,
Then every
Knew Knew that the stone was rolled away, And flew to meet the risen Friend And long before the Magdalene Had reached the empty sepulchre,
.
child, the legends say, that the time was at an end,
Or Peter heard what she had seen, Or fleet John hastened after her,
The children had gone forth and found The Master in the garden walk,
And scattered lillies on the ground, And seen His smile, and heard Him No child was puny, halt or lame,
talk.
Or hungry, or in tatters clad, But clothed as if in light they came, And all were whole, and strong, and glad. They throng along the Kedron rill, They thread the city through the gates Straight up to Joseph's garden hill,
Where He
that loves the children waits.
They sing, they dance, they climb the trees, They circle round in ring and file They know they cannot fail to please, And win the guerdon of His smile. He lifts His hand "I bore the pain
;
:
Of death for men by

I rise
sin defiled,
henceforth to live and reign Lord of the kingdom of the Child."
And when
They vanish, and He stands alone the women come to weep, The garden flames with flowers new-blown-The children are at home asleep.
;
[93]

1 '
that garden spot so bright The learned Rabbis stroked their chins ;
What makes
' ' !
They knew not yet that love is light, That knowledge fails where love begins. But somehow still on Easter morn The world is beautiful again,
And
in each child-like heart is
born
Some yearning of good will to men, Some haunting sense, some happy dream,
Of singing birds, of daffodils, Of olive branches, or the gleam Of dew-shine on the Syrian hills.
[94]
SONGS
SONGS
Sweetest,
let
no cloud of sorrow
let
no cloud of sorrow
o'er us;
Cast a shadow SWEETEST,
Let no dark foreboding borrow One bright ray from that tomorrow Beckoning before us.
Weary
waiting, toil and trouble
These shall not confound us. All. the hardship is a bubble We can love, and that is double
:
All the world around us.
Can it matter, sweetest, whether Days be dull or shining ?

If our hearts are knit together,
Summer time or winter weather Ne'er shall know repining.
[97]
Lady,
who
who
is
richer far
richer far
?
is
Than LADY
titled heirs or princes are
Who
hath quaffed a drink divine Rarer than the rarest wine?
He He
to
to
whom your eyes whom you have a
are kind,
mind,
sips
lips.
Who
by your proud election The honeyed nectar of your
SONGS
All through the day
bore the pain
Of ALL
through the day
I bore the pain following after thee in vain.
All through the night the demons sent Dream and fancy to torment me.
me
Now
the hope I built
upon
Rises with another sun, And whatever the toil or pain I follow after thee again.
[99]
Mutatis Mutandis
And WHEN
my
lady goeth fairly, her countenance is rarely
Lighted by the things that please her, Mien and happy mood according Are themselves the sweet rewarding Of the kindling eye that sees her.
But when her course is out of measure, Or some stirring of displeasure

Tints her face with hues that never
Fell on canvas, or
from darkling Troubled brow her eyes are sparkling, She is lovelier than ever.
[100]
POEMS OF THE SPIRIT
POEMS OF THE SPIRIT
A Prayer
Teach me indifference to praise or blame, So long as with good conscience I can say I sought to find the straight and narrow way. If suddenly the fires of passion flame About me, .let me calm them with that Name Which in my heart I never could betray. And when the light fails, and untroubled sleep Has clothed my senses with its sweet reward,
give
MASTER,
let
me
Quietly, yet with
labor through the day clear, unswerving aim.
my
spirit
then a large increase

;
Of strength for one more day of striving keep The gateway of my dreams and wake me, Lord, To walk again the manly paths of peace.
;
[103]
Far Country
the cities the
I
EYOND
I
have seen,
wrack and din, Beyond There is a wide and fair demesne
Where
have never been.

desert wastes of greed,
pride,
Away from
Over the peaks of

Its citizens abide.
Across the seas of mortal need
And through
the distance though I see
How stern must be the fare, My feet are ever fain to be

Upon
the journey there.
In that far land the only school The dwellers all attend
Is built
upon the Golden Rule,

to
And man
No war
It is a
is
man
is
friend.
there nor war's distress,
But truth and love increase
And
all
realm of pleasantness, her paths are peace.

[104]
POEMS OF THE SPIRIT
Nil
Desperandum
way
I
:
Before OFT me, and
When
I go lies hard and steep cannot see my goal those dream-kindled hopes wherewith my
when
the
soul
Lighted the path have failed when I could weep To think how slow, unfirm a pace I keep,
;
How weak my
Or
faith,
how
slight
my
self-control,
forward, though the whole 'er-ripe world-harvest waits ahead to reap Oft in these hours I listen to the voice
will to speed
;
me
Of
seers
Who knew
fate,
and heroes through the ages past, at length the metes and bounds of
And
One
clear
always, whatsoe'er their lot or choice, command they give Or slow or fast,
:
Despair not, trust thyself, and trusting, wait.
Ideal
I
OWHEN
With no
morrow,
am
tossed
on the waters of
sorrow,
sick,
Uncertain and
light for today,
without compass or goal, and no hope for to
And
fear
is
a torture to body
and soul
When
fruitless endeavor, or
thwarted ambition,
The anguish
of loving or physical pain Brings sobering thoughts of the rapid transition
Of year
It is
into year without comfort or gain
easy and well from out of that sorrow,
Goodness, to cry unto Thee For light for today, and hope for tomorrow, For guidance and faith on a desolate sea.
infinite
But teach me,
Spirit, that
harder devotion
When When
And
skies are serene
sailing is fair, the haven lies white on the rim of the
and the
ocean, love is the captain to pilot

[106]
me
there.
For
if
then
remember
to
honor and love Thee,
And own that from Thee every blessing is sent, When the waters of sorrow would gather above
me
Thy merciful
care shall be quick to prevent.
[107]
The Wonder
MARVEL
not to see the works of God.
The mighty river rolling to the sea, The sunlit mountain crowned eternally With crystal snow, the earthquake like a rod Of vengeance, trumpet winds and flowers that nod
In beauty,
all
the heavenly majesty
These from
childhood up have been to Familiar voices saying, "God is God." But evermore the wonder grows amain
my
me
That we,
slight creatures, should ourselves
com
mand
The uses and the beauty of the whole To build a harp, with strings of joy and pain In endless range, whereon the Master's hand
May
strike the
music of a
human
soul.
;io8]
POEMS OF THE SPIRIT
Watch Night
*r
I^IS mystic midnight, and

JL
year.
the bell
tolls
Cleaves the cold air and
away
The haggard
Alas
no
spell
Can
lure
him on
to meet the day.
The new year
at the selfsame
hour
On -winged
Can hold
Stay not,
sandals never slack
Begins his course.
Alas no power
!
his flying footsteps back.
heart, for time nor tide,
Nor count the days that now are done, But spread the wings of purpose wide,
Coeval with the rising sun.
[109]
Values
God 's high heaven and
in His earth
These things Health and a task, the dreams of youth,

I
IN
hold of matchless worth
Beauty and law, and
love,
and
truth.
[no]
POEMS OF THE
SPIRIT
Tyrant Beauty
MY
A
mind
is set
on earnest days
nights of quiet sleeping, But beauty over all my ways
And
tyrant watch
is
keeping.
She haunts me in a lovely face, By pool and stream she stays me, Her form in every cloud I trace,
Her
starry sky betrays me.

is
Hers Hers
the mantling
down
of snow,
the solemn warning Of dirges that the north winds blow, And hers the burst of morning.
is
She forges all the human ties That bind me to my neighbor; She wreathes the laurel crown that Upon the brow of labor.
lies
A golden bird in a budding tree

Pours out
his heart in singing
[in]

Which tells the more of beauty, he Or the bud where the sap is springing ?
No By
time or place is left to me night or day for resting

;
Her
finger points,
and
must be
Adventuring and questing.

Let this austere dominion cease, beauty, to distress me,
Or grant to me a vast increase Of power to express thee.
[112]
The Three Marys

blessed
morn
three
THAT
To
Martha's
Marys came
glorify the Easter scene

sister,
Mary dame,
And
the repentant Magadalene.
One by a perfect love was led, One -brought a mother's sore distress, One wore upon her lovely head
chastened crown of thankfulness.

these
And
by loyal suffering
as one in sweet accord,
Were made
Through whom
the generations bring Increasing homage to their Lord.
Companionship
CLOSED
spread my book upon my knee, But though I pondered well that lore, I ended wanting something more.
I called a
the door and turned the key
And
comrade friend
to share
fair,
My
His
quiet room.
I
His speech was
spirit high, his discourse wide,
But
was
still
unsatisfied.
Then
in the stillness all alone
My
soul rose
up
to claim her
own
Inviolable right to be, Father, face to face with Thee.
POEMS OF THE SPIRIT
Home is
the Heart
MYA
My
Drowns
dwelling place hath ever been
And though
spirit-builded home within, at whiles I fare apart, mistress still is mistress heart.
Sometimes the brazen horn success

all
I
her tones of tenderness,
And
then
goad
my
will
and dream
esteem.
To win
the things that
men
Of
Sometimes the meaning and the end living seems to be a friend, Whose comprehending kindred mind Is all the boon I crave to find.
And
often, too,
I
where beauty 's sign

that standard mine,
Appears,
make
While pleasure lifts a luring voice To rob my will of other choice.
Then honor calls the give and take Of combat stirs my soul awake,
;

Where men through troubled ages long
Clash in the
lists
of right
and wrong.
But what success can be complete ? What perfect friends did ever meet
In fellowship so well inspired But something more was still desired
?
And beauty wanes, and pleasure palls, And all the pride of honor falls When carnal strife has claimed her toll
Of ravished limb and tarnished
soul.
With
clearer vision then I see Content in these can never be,

all
And
Of
the folly
is
disclosed
trust in
outward things reposed.

I
And
with that lesson
return
To where the lamps of loving burn Turn home again and now aright I walk by an unfailing light.
[116]
Compensation
only in thine heart there be
IFSome depth of earnest gratitude

For
life
's
great bounties unto thee,
Though pain will come and fears intrude, Thou canst not wholly miss the crown Of those by heaven accounted blessed
:
Patience will bring a healing down,
And
peace will give the spirit
rest.
["7]
Certainty
WHAT Sorrow
have
fathomed of
life,
What
medley of and solace profound?

creatures of dust
of its
strife,
What can we
Stand upon, swear by, and trust, What my unshakable ground?

that though evil be strong, Goodness prevaileth ere long, However betrayed or beset That he his own spirit doth smother
:
This
Who
And
this: that
willeth the hurt of another, God liveth yet.
[118]
POEMS OF THE SPIRIT
In the Still Night

the
still
INThe blessed boon of

From
all
night there conies to

liberty.
me
and choked, The spirit is at last unyoked To seek her heaven, as she ought,
the cares that chafed
On
sturdy wings of fearless thought.
Then come the dreams which through the day The moil of living shuts away. Then can the soul her fountains fill, While all the universe is still,
From
streams of quietness that rise

hills
tell
Out of the
of Paradise.
was meant For some design beneficent, For sweet-imagined sounds I hear, And forms of beauty hover near To win me to the perfect trust That life is good, and God is just, And permeates His world whereof The essence and the end is love.
I
And
can
the day
Father Love
T unto him does heaven grant
to
bend
night above the creamy cheek And dimpled smile of baby. 'Tis the meek, Sweet privilege of mother to attend
By day and
The cradle
shrine.
There patience without end
Wins her a beauty words can never speak. Her troubled joy has nothing more to seek Where life and love in one devotion blend. For him the roughened world, all day for him
The tyrant task, the tension of the mind. But toil were vain as any froth or foam, Were not that hour to come when twilight dim Brings weariness, and father turns to find Rest with the blessed angels of his home.
[120]
POEMS OF THE
SPIRIT
Divine Affinity
'npWERE
I
vain,
God, in
divine:
thine.
me
to tell
Thy potency
of
Omniscience surely knoweth well
How much
As As
So
is
me
is
the steel to the
magnet
bar,
to the rose the bee,
The earth
am
I,
to its compelling star God, to Thee.
[121]
Learning to
little
Walk
To stand alone and make her way. With faltering will and timid feet
OUR
cherub learned today
From mother's knee
to father's seat.
With many a failure, many a pause, Now by rebuke, now by applause, With tears and oft-recurring doubt,
She toiled her
little
journey out.
And
ever as her faith declined,
She strove anew, for there behind Was mother's sweetly crooned command, And on ahead her father's hand.
And
Her
0, at last when she survived tiny perils and arrived,
What Were
depths of feeling unexpressed stirred within each guardian breast!
We
older children of the earth
Have journeyed
farther from our birth,

[122]
POEMS OF THE SPIRIT
But doubt and pain and dark delay Attend the journey all the way.
And
Is
all
our balm for heart or mind
merely this, that we shall find, Before we come to utter harm, The refuge of a Father's arm.
The Teacher
who am
To LORD,little
I to
teach the
way
children day
by day,
So prone myself to go astray?

I teach
them knowledge, but
know
How
The
faint they flicker and how low candles of my knowledge glow.
them power to will and do, But only now to learn anew My own great weakness through and through.
I teach
I
teach them love for

all
all
mankind
And
My
Oh
God's ceatures, but I find love comes lagging far behind.

if
Lord,
let
their guide I
little
still
must
be,
the
children see
The teacher leaning hard on Thee.
[124]
DATE DUE
CAYLORD

Leslie Pinckney Hill - Wings of Oppression (1921)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Leslie Pinckney Hill - Wings of Oppression (1921)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

IfcftAKY

The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U.

significant than that which the colored man has

some of these poems

Crisis," "The Outlook," "The Independent," "Life," and various other

LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL. Cheyney, Pennsylvania, March, 1921.

....... ....... ....... ......

POEMS OF THE TIMES

Clemenceau The Founder

To All Leaders of Brixton Prison

To the Smartweed To William James To Mrs. J. B. T

Spring The Dogwood

Sacred Music at Sea Vacation End

A Legend of the Easter Children

A Prayer A Far Country

The Wonder Watch Night

Tyrant Beauty The Three Marys

Home is the Heart

Father Love Divine Affinity

Learning to Walk The Teacher

a song that few will sing

song the heavy-laden hears

ask not why, I only see poor is all our potency,

soon the wise, the strong, the free

Some deadly bane

While he whose bread

Keeps near to beauty, near And Socrates and Moses.

The captains and the gilded

THE WINGS OF OPPRESSION

the beacon lights of earth truth and faith to follow.

justice lift her conquering sign

Where lowly people

starve and pine Beneath a world oppression.

alone the heart will dare

The poem was originally pub

Crisis" under the

the whirlwind and the thunder-

THE WINGS OF OPPRESSION

His will to run

origin outdates the pyramids, Uncherished of my country though the blood

that typifies the slave, with darkness, and by that

care to find for her a lodging-place.

of mercy--at the shrine thought inviolate the wells of peace.

has called society,

of these pursuits learn -what perfect service, born of throes

and highest aim

citadels are stars, with time and space

Their pylons, but

builds His favored

the docile trust of lowly hearts-

Proceeded comfort, patience to endure, And strength increasing of a faith sublime

THE WINGS OF OPPRESSION

No hope for future man in Upon the heights of power,

save in the tales

battalions of eternal right make their discomfort sure.

of all lands, ye that are raised

To cheerfulness, and foreigners

These know ye not, these have ye not received,

gave to them your God, and poured your

Into their veins to

They They hold

shall not fail